ther bazaar was held on the 10th, 11th and 12th of December – this time in the new building itself, which was then in a condition to be opened for the reception for 70 or 80 invalid ladies of limited means, who for the payment of a guinea per week would be provided with careful nursing and skilful medical attendance. Full reports were given at the time, and it is only necessary here to state that the receipts totalled about £610, thus leaving a debt of £2,000 still remaining on the building.
The St. Leonards Regatta
In consequence of frequent delays and postponements of the preceding year’s regattas – some through unfavourable weather and some through a want of agreement by the joint committee of both towns, there was afterwards a tacit understanding that in all future aquatic sports it would be better for each town to make its own arrangement. Preliminary Meeting. At the British hotel on the 11th of June, a meeting was held, and a committee formed of the following gentlemen:- G. Gipps, Esq. (chairman) C. Savery, Esq. Mr. C. T. How (treasurer), Messrs. Ballard, Chester, Beauvois, Hughes, Kenwood, Mann, Descoe, Payne, Thurnwood Goepel, Skinner, Wise and Deering. A second meeting was held at the same place, a week later, whilst two meetings had also been held by the committee of the Hastings regatta. Thus, except in little acts of courtesy and a friendly feeling professedly existent between the two committees of management, the two regattas were to be as distinctly independent as though effected at places far distant from each other. The periods selected were the 25th of July and the 12th of August, St. Leonards taking precedence of time.
A Postponement. “It is a remarkable thing”, said an acquaintance on the 24th of July, “that if tomorrow prove to be a day like the present, how unfortunate you Hastings and St. Leonards people are in your choice of days on which to hold your regattas. Year after year the same disappointment occurs, and it appears that all the weather-wisdom of a maritime town is insufficient to guide you in your selection of suitable periods. Even the oracle of the St. Leonards Gazette – pardon the allusion! – who has, I suppose, been consulted on such occasions, seems to have been unable to foresee the meteorological requisites for those events.” A verbal response to the foregoing remarks was all that was necessary to convince our enquiring friend that, with one exception, the weather on all the regatta days for some years past, had been precisely that which the “oracle” had anticipated. It happened that the stormy character of the 24th, extended to the morning of the 25th, and left the committee no alternative to a postponement of the regatta to another day. “We sincerely hope (said the St. Leonards Gazette), -
